


POST-START

by livingforfiction



Category: The Americans (TV 2013)
Genre: F/M, i miss these people so much, if joe weisberg sees this PLEASE BRING THEM BACK, they will never die in my mind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:41:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23555506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livingforfiction/pseuds/livingforfiction
Summary: How will life for Elizabeth and Philip be after they arrive to their homeland?[Completely AU] (Rated M for future chapters)
Relationships: Elizabeth Jennings/Philip Jennings | Clark Westerfield
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	1. WE COULD BE HEROES

**Author's Note:**

> Underlined text would represent dialogue in Russian.   
> Whatever you think of this, I'd love to know! Thanks for reading.

**Chapter 1**

In exchange for their sacrifice, their work, their blood, sweat and tears, Elizabeth and Philip now held the distinctions of Heroes of the URSS. After their arrival, they settled definitively in Moscow, where an honorific ceremony was held in their honor days later, in the middle December of 1987.

“Would it be disrespectful if I just don't show up?” Elizabeth asks from the bathroom, applying mascara to her eyelashes.

“Yes.” he replies. “It's just a couple of hours, Liz. We can give them that after twenty-something years.”

“The questions. Goodness.”

“They mean well.”

“Yeah. As long as they don't start asking about the sex. How humiliating.”

“You could tell them about the time you were faking a threesome and I walked in with a gun. They won't ask again.”

Elizabeth chuckles in the bathroom. In their bedroom, Philip fixes an apparent flaw in his hair. And then, he stares at himself in the mirror for way too long. Everything it's so strange, yet so familiar. Some things have changed, yes, but not enough to make him believe this was a different country. Many things were still pretty much the same. He was growing his beard, he has been for days, he plans on letting it grow. And Elizabeth, he thinks, may come up with something. A way to pull herself away from the American capitalist persona she played for two decades.

Still, they will continue to call each other Philip and Elizabeth and they will continue to speak English, just because it's their thing already. Besides the faking part, they bonded together over English and their 'fake' names, so English it is. Outside, to the Motherland, they will resume their native speaking. But to them, speaking English with each other was also a way of honoring their kids. It's the only language their kids speak.

Elizabeth walks into their bedroom, and catches him standing in front of the mirror, still numb in his own thoughts. “Are you okay?” she asks. “Yes”, he replies, shaking himself out of his trance, “Just thinking”. She walks over to him, her sense of empathy kicking in, and she puts both of her arms around his body. She presses against him, their eyes meeting in the mirror, before she kisses his shoulder softly.

“If you were having dreams... or terrors. Or some of that... you would tell me?”.

He nods, slowly.

“Good”, she replies. “Because I don't want to have them, but no one knows what can happen to our heads from now on. So let's give each other a heads up, just in case, don't you think?”

He nods again.

“I'm stressed”, says Elizabeth. “Oddly stressed”.

“Because we're used to be stressed. Or, that was the normal. And now we don't have anything to be stressed about, so it's... the brain, I guess. Repeating patterns.” says Philip.

“Yeah”.

“You ready?” he asks.

And she nods, observes him while he walks away. She was never one to believe in God, and she wasn't gonna start now. But if there is _something,_ she thinks, she begs for him not to fall into a well. Neither of them, actually. She doesn't want any of them both to fall into a well.

  
  


Elizabeth. “Nadia”, the most popular short for her name. Both are beautiful names. So is she in white silk, with her hair loose down her back. Arkady acted as an 'introducer' to everyone invited: mostly, bureaucrats and high-rank official with their families. Obviously, everyone was _fascinated. Thirsty_ to hear from them. _Dazzled_ with the living image of national heroes standing right in front of them. Directorate S officers: the most sacrificed officers in the entire KGB. What a life, some said to both Philip and Elizabeth, they must have had. Twenty three years, what a crazy thing.

“Did you ever think about quitting?” asked Anya, the lovely 20-year old daughter of the Minister of Production.

“Well, of course you think about it, but you don't just... do it. We were trained to give our lives if necessary.” replied Elizabeth. He stood there, beside her, preferring not to speak. She noticed, of course, but she let him. She knew she couldn't ask him to walk around giving testimonies as if he were brightly proud. Not anymore. That faded a long time ago. Anya, with big round eyes and a delicately traced jaw, with her long blonde hair and her very reserved turquoise dress, seemed to have a spark in her pupils with every question she asked. Elizabeth found her adorable and kind. Philip too, but he saw something he had seen in Elizabeth's eyes when they were young: WILL.

The will to grab a battle sword and dig it into her own abdomen if needed. Anya seemed very interested. _Poor girl,_ he thought, _don't do it_. _Get out of there._

While he attentively listened to Elizabeth and Anya's conversation, he felt a hand leaning over his shoulder. Arkady.

“Let's leave them alone, should we?” he asks, to which Philip nods. Elizabeth turns, and Arkady signals to let her know they're moving around. She subtly nods. “How are you feeling?”

“Good... it's hard now. I mean...” says Philip while they grab a glass of champagne from a tray in a waiter's hand.

“You have to adjust. It's totally normal to feel out of place, or uncomfortable. It will get better. And remember, we're always here for you both. Whatever you need.” says Arkady in a very reassuring tone. Then Philip looks at Elizabeth again. He just can't seem to believe the situation, to completely grasp reality. He remembers he has to ask her if she is grasping it.

“I know. Thank you.” he replies.

“Anya's lovely, isn't she?”

“Yes. She seems like a very smart girl.”

“She is. Her father raised her to be an erudite. She intends to join The Centre for training next year.” reveals Arkady.

 _Is she, now?_ Thinks Philip. Not surprising. “Wonderful. She can make a great asset for Intelligence, I assume.”

“Actually, her wishes are set to Directorate S.”

Philip raises his eyebrows in surprise. Well, faking it. “Really?”

“Yes... and I must tell you, she has everything it takes.”

“How's so?”

“I've seen her grow up. She's bold, observant, knows when you're lying to her. And she's been a great swimmer since a kid, so she has the physical strength.”

“Perfect, then.”

He observes Elizabeth again. No doubt they got along. He remembers to ask her what she plans on doing now, here, to pass time. What are they gonna do with their lives now?


	2. Chapter 2

Then there’s the house. The lovely place the Center picked for them. Classic Russian everywhere, although they of course had the freedom to do whatever they wanted. It was their house now.  
The idea of this empty house —no matter how lovely it is— makes it slightly more difficult for them to adjust. No noises in the morning apart from theirs, no shouting from the other room asking about the laundry. The image of their daughter beside the platform haunts Elizabeth. Adjusting.  
She knew from the day they arrived, she was going to need a distraction, a purpose, something to keep serving through. She didn’t know any other way of life. Him, on the other hand, he had different ideas… he wanted to reform the house, dedicate his energy to helping other people —not necessarily agents in training but any part of the population that could use help, since he knew things weren’t the fairest they’ve been now. 

The next day after the reception the Committee of the Party organized for them, they barely saw each other all day. Because she woke up first, and she went for a run; a hard run. Fast, energetic, self-demanding, pressuring. She knew the whole city of Moscow like the palm of her hand, given the years she spent living there as a trainee, but after a certain amount of miles, she found herself on a corner she couldn’t point out. There was a coffee shop, or a store of sorts: tea, infusions, herbs. Her chest rose up and down and she looked at her own reflection on the glass: Elizabeth. Devoted wife and mother. No, she thought. With the cold head that makes her unique, she looked around the blocks, trying to locate herself in the city. At her right, on the opposite corner, a building that looks familiar. A pair of laurels engraved above the door. Right, she thinks, and resumes her running towards her left.

Him, on the other hand, woke up and wasn’t surprised or scared to see she was gone. He couldn’t picture where, though. A place to live that wasn’t the same, as they weren’t either. Their marriage solely has never been on shakier ground. He hopes he doesn’t lose her to their country, or to the imminent lack of one.   
He stopped in every room of the house to check on every aspect: the paint, the structure, the furniture. It was really a pretty place, but it wasn’t quite them, not yet.   
When she went back home, he was in the shower. He later found her sitting on the dining room, facing the big windows, sipping tea with her eyes lost on something outside.   
She didn’t hear him, but she felt something. Her instinct, the sixth sense some would say. “Hey. Good morning”, she said, and returned to her tea.   
“Are you alright?” he asks before sitting.  
“Yeah. Went for a run.”  
“How is it?”  
“What?”  
“Everything” he says.  
“It looks good. Slowly changing, but it’s not too late yet.”  
He raises his eyebrows. Sooner or later, he thought.   
“What were you up to? Did you just wake up?”   
“No. I looked around, I checked…” he replies and outs a soft sigh. “I like it in here. It’s nice. We just have to adjust it.”  
She looked around quietly too. “Yeah”, she says after a bit. “It is. It will look good”  
“Arkady said we can ask for something else.”  
“Well, I don’t think we need to. There’s space, maybe too much for us, but anyway. And light.”  
“And I don’t think there are many gardens like this in Moscow.”  
The jasmines were glowing under the sun at that time. And the grass, the green grass, real grass.   
She looks at him still staring at the garden, but there’s something in his mind. Probably the same thing in hers: all that space, that light, that garden, grass, flowers, beauty.   
“The papers need to be filed”, he says, and looks back at her.  
She had forgotten about that for a bit. “Right. I forgot” she replies.  
He waits, stares at her slim fingers holding the hot ceramic. “Do you still want to file them, Liz?”  
She looks up at him, then down. She’s thinking, and he can’t blame her. He asked because he wanted to hear it from her. He could’ve just filed them without asking, and that would’ve been it.   
“Yes. Let’s file them”.  
Neither of them believes a piece of paper should influence a human bond, but those papers also mean a compromise they would be reaffirming. It’s been a long time shared, and the ceremony with just the two of them and Father Andrei was a couple of years ago already so they might feel it’s nothing new, but for the Soviet State, they weren’t formally married, not yet.  
She wants to stay married. She wants it to be official, although they can’t be certain about their future.

She stands up, taking her cup with her. “Arkady said he wanted to talk to me at the quarters”  
“Oh, really?”  
“Yeah… I’m sure he wants me for teaching or something”  
“You would like that. You’re good at it”  
She smiles, softly. After placing the cup on the counter, she returns to him, and kisses his forehead.  
“Depends on what they ask me to teach about” she says, before heading to the door.  
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

At the KGB headquarters, in Arkady’s office, he said he was going back to America soon.   
“First of all, our trainees need the best guidance we can provide them, Nadia” he had already adopted the short version of her name as a nickname. “You know what I’m about to propose you”.  
She smiles, savoring the coffee he poured for her. Then, a small nod. “I want to know what I’m supposed to teach”.  
“Would that be a conditioning aspect for you to say yes?”  
“I want to know where you need me the most. As long as you actually need me, and you’re not putting me on teaching just because you pity me”  
“Nadia, please. You know the Center would be lucky to have you teaching our young people”  
She nods. “Alright then. What is it?”, says Elizabeth, before sipping the coffee.  
“We would like you to be in charge of our female trainees. Directorate S, of course. Girls like you were”  
She raises her eyebrows, she likes it. “What kind of competence?”  
“The physical. Their aptitude in agility, tactics, fitness”  
“I like it”  
“Good” he replies. “There’s so much they could learn from you”  
“Hmm” she mumbles. “I accept”  
Arkady smiles, promising to communicate the good news to the Center’s high cupola.   
As they walk to the wide entrance of the Quarters, he dares ask: “Do you think your husband would want to join in?”  
“Teaching? No way”  
“Well”, says Arkady, “whatever is best for him”.  
“Indeed”, replies Elizabeth.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your reviews. It makes me super happy that there are actual people reading this fandom.   
> If you want to come and say hi, or yell at me, or talk about the show, anything... I'm on tumblr as dougies-coffee :)

“Good morning, everyone,” says Elizabeth, walking into the gym.   
“Good morning,” replies a group of young girls, around ten of them. Elizabeth takes off her coat and hangs it on a hook beside the door. She does a quick visual sweep of them all: among eighteen and twenty-two in age, she supposes. She asked Arkady not to send her the teenagers.   
“Oh no,” he replied. “Those are not yours to handle yet. They’re not ready.”  
They’re standing, respectfully, with their arms on their hips. They’re looking at her like she’s a high-rank official. She is now, she remembers. “You may sit,” she says. The girls sit on the floor, forming an open circle. Elizabeth takes the chair beneath the coat hanger and drags it to the circle. Sitting in front of the girls, she looks at their faces, one by one, but not too much. She doesn’t mean to scare them.  
“Now. Before I ask for your names…” she starts, then crosses her legs. “You may ask. Anything you want. I know you have questions, c’mon.”  
The group remains silent. One of the girls, sitting exactly across Elizabeth, eyes the other girls shyly, from side to side.  
“What’s your name?” says Elizabeth, who noticed.  
“Viktoryia,” replies the girl. She’s got a lovely voice, smooth and husky.  
“Lovely name,” says Elizabeth. “You can ask. I know you have questions.”  
Viktoryia, with a lightly ash hair, white skin and brown round eyes, has a decent accent, but she still needs to master her T’s. “I wouldn’t want to be impertinent, ma’am.”  
“You won’t. It is natural that you all have questions, and before they start coming up in the middle of our trainings, I want you to get them all out so you can focus on your work instead of staring at me with your questions in mind. Come on.”  
“Did you ever regret it?” one of the girls from the corner asks, out of the blue. Dark hair, almost black. A piercing gaze.   
“What thing?” asks Elizabeth.  
“Leaving.”  
“What’s your name?”   
“Sabina”  
“No. I never regretted my choices.”  
Sabina nods softly, maybe taking the answer a bit personally, Elizabeth notices.  
“Anyone else?”  
“Me,” says Viktoryia. “The sex. It terrifies me.”  
“You mean sex in general or while on duty?”  
“On duty, ma’am. I don’t know you all can do it.”  
“Well, it’s definitely a harsh experience at first. After a few times, the fears just ease up. You just have to stare at a static point and… wait until it’s done.”  
The faces of the girls hide while they bow their heads down.   
“I think the best thing you can do while you’re still here is… find someone you trust. A friend, or at least someone you can rely on. And try it with that person. It’s better if you don’t like him or her, so you can get used to the feeling, but if it’s someone you trust… the change is progressive. It won’t be as hard. You practically won’t notice the habit settling in. Anything else?”  
No one. Not a sound.  
“Good, then. Let’s begin. Everyone will begin with their individual routine.”  
The girls stood up instantly and dispersed into the gym, some beginning with stretching, while some others began running. 

After the initial rounds, they worked in pairs while Elizabeth fought with each one of them, one at a time.   
Viktoryia does pretty well, but she’s still in the process of learning how to counterattack. She does great at attacking, but after a punch in the stomach, she has a hard time standing back straight.  
“It’s fine, just breathe,” said Elizabeth. She then held the girl by her shoulder and waist, pulling her upwards. “And straight yourself up. Always, even if it hurts. You won’t recover otherwise.” 

Sabina, on the other hand, definitely caught Elizabeth’s attention. Besides her astonishing looks, with her dark hair, her piercing gaze and the thick lips, she was an absolutely worthy rival. She fought with Elizabeth at an equal level, never missing a punch or any attempts from Elizabeth to find a blind spot. After the first minute, both were short of air, breathing in deeply to recover. The girl stood there, shaken but still in her place, and Elizabeth took it as a sign of obedience. She didn’t even look her in the eye. “Very good, kid.” Said Elizabeth.   
Sabina’s eyes went up fleetingly, along with a subtle smile and a nod. “Thank you, ma’am.” She replied, deviating her look from Elizabeth again.   
“You can look me in the eye, you know.”   
The girl tilts her head up and smiles shyly. “Okay.” She replies.  
“How long have you been here?”  
“Five years, ma’am.”  
“And you are…”  
“Twenty one.”  
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Philip was, as Elizabeth, proposed by Arkady with a place at the young cadets training center. He was offered the counterpart of Elizabeth’s same function: training and preparing the boys physically.   
He had asked Philip to go out for a coffee. He said thank you, but he wasn’t sure he could still be a part of training new minds. “Not at this point,” he said. “My wife may have an endless amount of energy buried inside of her, but I’m not. She’s bulletproof, I’m not.”  
“That’s okay, I understand. But please, tell me you will consider it. That’s not the only place where we could use your work; there’s also the Intelligence training. It doesn’t have to be physical. Anywhere in the chain of training that you’d be interested, you can count on a spot.”  
“I appreciate it that, Arkady Ivanovich. I really do. Let me think about it.”  
“Of course.”  
On the way home, Philip took his time to walk at a pace that allowed him to process his thoughts and process everything in his surroundings. In this adjusting period, the mind can be a mess. He was sure Elizabeth’s was too, but she’s not one to vocalize about her inner rummaging.  
He decided it was also time to adjust his whole body to this too. Maybe letting the beard grow. And his hair. With him, his looks could change as well. The concepts of ‘difference’ and ‘identity’ are challenging his mind, lately. Are they going to change? Or have they already?  
Will Elizabeth and him be able to sustain their marriage? Is the war going to get worse, is the tension going to keep rising?… what are their roles?  
Too many questions for such an intense transition moment like this. As he walks, he thinks he should focus on what he wants to do from now on. He knows he can do pretty much anything now.  
Maybe some place where there’s a lot of people, and he can do something for them. Young people would be nice. Like a center or a place of sorts. He knows well there are many unsatisfied needs in this country.   
The bigger questions keep popping into his mind; the remaining sun, now giving into the sunset, hits his right side. What is there now? Is training girls going to be enough for Elizabeth? He misses the kids. And Mischa, he reminds himself he has to go see him. Along with his brother. He thinks him and Elizabeth would like each other; he’s a soldier, and she… she’s the same.


End file.
